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About Lauren Hewes

D.C. Fabronious after Trevor McClurg, Home Again, New York: W. Endicott, 1866.
This large lithograph was printed a year after the Civil War had ended. Made after a painting by Pittsburgh-area artist Trevor McClurg who had trained with Emmanuel Leutze in Dusseldorf, Germany, the print shows an injured Union veteran returning to his home. The ...

Benjamin Franklin. New York: J. Dalton, for the New York Albion, ca. 1860.
Large format engravings were distributed in several ways in pre-Civil War America. They could be ordered from a publisher by subscription, purchased directly through book and print dealers, or awarded as premiums for membership in an organization, such as the American Art Union. Many ...

Those of you who follow the Society's blog are aware that the last week in April was Preservation Week, a period set aside by the American Libraries Association to focus on the care and conservation of collections material.
We take preservation seriously at AAS. The word is part of our core mission, in fact. We have ...

Tomorrow night the Society is holding its seventh annual Adopt-a-Book event at Antiquarian Hall from 6:00 to 8:00pm. Come join us for libations and snacks (generously donated this year by Ed Hyder, Panera, and Crown Bakery). Each of the Society's curators has selected material for adoption including paper dolls, ledger books, newspapers, lithographs, and bound ...

The Bookbinders Shop. Philadelphia: P.S. Duval for the American Sunday School Union, ca. 1850.
This image of the interior of the British bookbinding establishment of Westleys & Clark was issued by the Philadelphia lithographer P.S. Duval sometime between 1842 and 1850. A second, related print showing a ship and its furniture was printed by Duval using the same bordered ...

This year the American Antiquarian Society will be holding its 7th annual Adopt-a-Book event on Tuesday, May 6th, from 6:00 to 8:00pm. This event has been an entertaining and successful fundraiser for the library’s continued acquisitions of historic material. The money raised helps curators buy more books, pamphlets, prints, newspapers, and manuscripts. On May 6th, participants ...

We know how to keep busy in the dead of winter here at the American Antiquarian Society. In late 2012 Patricia Johnston, the Professor Rev. J. Gerard Mears, S.J. chair in fine arts at the College of the Holy Cross, approached AAS with the idea of having one of her Holy Cross classes research and ...

Bufford, J.H. Vinter dragt [i.e. drakt] fra Karasjok i Finmarken and Dragter [i.e. Drakter] fra Hitterdal i Tellemarken. Costume plates from Norway Illustrated. New York: Arthur Gilbert & Co., 1872.
AAS holds an uneven medley of the pieces that made up an ambitious 1872 printing called Norway Illustrated. The set was to be issued by New ...

American Fortune Telling Cards, with Directions. New York and Philadelphia: Turner & Fisher, after 1835. 36 cards with box.
AAS has several sets of fortune telling cards in its Toys and Games collection. This set features typical four-suit cards suggesting travel, wealth, poverty, love, etc., but is distinctive because many of the images feature American eagles, ...

The Society's Graphic Arts collection is a wonderful place for browsing, looking for visual evidence of whatever topic you may be working on. I have helped researchers hunt in the collection on such broad topics as death, food production, and dress, and as specific as orphaned children, methods of doing laundry, and book shop interiors.
As ...

Norwich Fire Insurance Co. New York: Hatch & Co., 1863-1865.
This color lithograph for a Connecticut insurance company features a city view surrounded by international flags and the names of local directors with interests in the firm. The sheet was printed by Hatch & Co. in New York, who advertised that they could produce: "Portraits landscapes, ...

This November AAS experimented with a new year-end fundraiser. We called it "Give a Gift to AAS Give a Gift to the World." Thirty objects were selected from across the entire spectrum of the Society's collections with several criteria in mind. Items had to be significant sources of research, fragile or rare, and under about ...

A lot of the Society's staff travels for work. We are a national organization and we collect material from all across the fifty states and Canada. Curators travel to conferences and to visit collectors, catalogers move about for training and to stay up to date with the latest methods, managers visit members, foundations, granting agencies, ...

As many researchers already know, life stops in 1876 for many parts of the American Antiquarian Society’s collections which are limited to the pre-Centennial era. Recently, however, the Society has amended its collection policies to permit the curator of graphic arts to add prints produced between 1876 and 1900 to the Society’s holdings in order ...

Calico Dress Ball! There Will be a Social Dance at Lyceum Hall, West Acton. Boston: Searle Printing, 1870.
This large (42” x 28 ½”) broadside was one of a group of five sheets purchased together, all of which relate to activities in Acton and West Acton, Massachusetts, between 1865 and 1875. Printed in Boston by F.A. ...